I don't want to hijack the main discussion, but I'd like to answer a couple of AdamT's observations:

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* please do not assume that admins and maintainers can follow everything that happens on the wiki; if you have something to say about somebody else's edits just do it ;)

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* I'd be glad to add some guidelines about recommendations to the style guide; the problem is that it's still very subjective to distinguish between what is a ''justified'' recommendation and what is a ''personal'' recommendation... Technically The.ridikulus.rat did justify his suggestion. If you have an idea for the wording of an effective style guide, please propose it here or in [[Help talk:Style]], but I think that most of these cases will have to be solved in discussion pages like it's happened here.

About making the installation media without overwriting

I'm not totally sure if I misunderstood something, but I had to change the path of the entries of the *.cfg files. For instance:

INCLUDE boot/syslinux/archiso_sys.cfg

became:

INCLUDE syslinux/archiso_sys.cfg

It was the only way it worked with the unofficial ISO x86_64 image of march 13th, 2012. Looks like the syslinux command described in the page doesn't get the path as it should.

I edited all of the .cfg files, but probably only editing this ones should have been enough:

archiso.cfg
archiso_head.cfg
archiso_sys_inc.cfg

I hope it could be useful to somebody, because I spend some time with this (I even thought that was a problem with the hardware). I think it could be possible to make a simple script (or give some command lines) to patch the files once they are copied into the USB and run syslinux.

Thanks !!

I cannot find that this is still relevant to the article as it now exists. I am striking it out as it looks like it could be good to remove. AdamT (talk) 10:33, 8 August 2013 (UTC)

Just lunched from USB drive without UUID(don't have any idea why it didn't have one). Solution was to change label to appropriate in loader/entries/archiso-x86_64.conf. Not sure weither this should be added to article.

Versusvoid, I would love to adapt the article but I cannot follow your description above. Looking at that section, it may be out dated. If you are watching this please elaborate when you have time. Thanks, AdamT (Talk) 08:32, 23 August 2013 (UTC)

Ok. For some reason ubuntu did not see USB UUID. So blkid -o value -s UUID /dev/sdx1 were returning empty string. The solution was:

It seems that sometimes you have to get the UUID by running the command as root. --Rongmu (talk) 11:23, 3 October 2013 (UTC)

Thank you for the follow-up. My semester started so I have not had much of a chance to help with the Arch Wiki of late. I am removing the strike from this section until I can take a closer look and update the article. AdamT (Talk) 02:02, 16 November 2013 (UTC)

Making an UEFI/BIOS ISO should be KISS

Following up on the discussion in the the bbs, I disagree that this edit should be kept as the first thing users see when hitting this page. I based this opinion on my feeling that the instructions are too many steps and, arguably too vague. Example, this method is 7 steps (depending on how you count) and requires that user read linked articles (i.e syslinux install and modifying master boot records). In contrast, the dd method is simple (KISS principal) and is both implemented and documented as pointed out by one of our developers in the aforementioned bbs thread.

I think we should at least start the article with the KISS method and this edit down the page. Graysky (talk) 10:30, 29 November 2013 (UTC)

Well, I have been keeping an eye on this since the.ridikulus.rat's extensive edits on and after 2013-11-20. I have kept quiet because the maintainers and admins seemed to accept the changes. However, from the start, I disagreed along lines similar to what Graysky has mentioned above.

I did not, and do not, understand why the Arch Wiki should be recommending a specific method without any references or firm reasoning. Instead the.ridikulus.rat seemed to be prescribing a method that was believed was superior based on their own preferences. This method is slightly more complicated than writing the image directly with dd, but it does keep the drive usable for data storage.

Please note this quote from the BBS thread Graysky linked above (emphasis mine): It took me some time to read through the syslinux docs and other blog [sic] to understand the syslinux installation process under Windows, and I don't appreciate you simply removing the entire part that I thought out and typed for the sake of the community. I just realized I completely mistook what the.ridikulus.rat meant to say here. Please disregard.

While I do think the technical information that the.ridikulus.rat provided was needed in general, and I had in fact proposed something similar shortly before, the extensive reordering of the page and the subjective recommendations does not seem in keeping with the ideals and established processes of the Arch Wiki as I understand them.

Further, referencing the quote above, egos definitely seem to be coming into play in a place where they should not matter. The sake of the community is what matters here, not individual investments. See also The Arch Way.

Moving forward, as of this writing, the changes that Teateawhy has been making seem to be in keeping with the practices put forth in the Arch Wiki's documentation while also mitigating the subjective recommendation that was put forth during the.ridikulus.rat's changes.

As a fairly new contributor, one aspect I have not been able to determine from reading over the Arch Wiki's documentation is when and how to make recommendations. As such, and keeping an eye on the bigger picture here, I would like to take this opportunity to suggest something be added to Help:Style or elsewhere regarding when and how recommendations and suggestions are justified. There seems to be a willingness for some contributors to make claims without references or supporting statements. Similar to Wikipedia's "reference needed" template, a flag or at least cohesive policy may be warranted for the Arch Wiki and it may help prevent situations like this in the future! : )

Side notes

I don't want to hijack the main discussion, but I'd like to answer a couple of AdamT's observations:

please do not assume that admins and maintainers can follow everything that happens on the wiki; if you have something to say about somebody else's edits just do it ;)

I'd be glad to add some guidelines about recommendations to the style guide; the problem is that it's still very subjective to distinguish between what is a justified recommendation and what is a personal recommendation... Technically The.ridikulus.rat did justify his suggestion. If you have an idea for the wording of an effective style guide, please propose it here or in Help talk:Style, but I think that most of these cases will have to be solved in discussion pages like it's happened here.